New plans to replace UK GDPR

During the Conservative Party Conference, which ran from 2 to 5 October, Michelle Donelan, the new Secretary for State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), made a speech announcing a plan to replace the UK GDPR¹ with a new “British data protection system”.

Donelan detailed the aims of the DCMS – being to drive growth and create more highly paid tech, digital and creative jobs with a view to growing the economy. She suggested that “there remains a significant amount of red tape in our way”, singling out data as an area to focus on. Specifically, Donelan referenced the “bureaucratic nature” of the current UK GDPR regime and research by the DCMS to justify the need for a new regime. This announcement means that the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (the Bill), which is currently progressing through parliament, is now likely to be abandoned². Donelan made no reference to the Bill in her speech. At the time we noted that the Bill would not be hugely transformational to UK data laws³, so it is possible that Donelan is now seeking to bring about a more radical overhaul of the UK GDPR regime.

Although detail about the new British data protection system was scarce, Donelan’s speech stated that it will continue to protect consumer privacy whilst providing a simpler landscape for businesses to navigate, citing regulations in other countries such as Israel and Japan as examples of alternative data protection regimes. Further, Donelan’s criticism of the UK GPDR focussed on the current requirements for smaller organisations “in the main [being] forced to follow the same one-size-fits-all approach as a multinational corporation”. However, any changes will need to find the right balance between:

i) reducing some of the administrative burden of the UK GDPR; while
ii) maintaining the UK’s finding of adequacy from the EU Commission that facilitates the sharing of personal data between the UK and the EU.

The UK’s Information Commissioner, John Edwards, released a statement⁴ shortly after Michelle Donelan’s announcement which highlighted the importance of this balance by stating “We are pleased to hear the Government’s commitment to protecting people’s privacy, preserving adequacy and simplifying data protection law”. We will continue to monitor developments in relation to these updates and report on them.

¹ The full text of Donelan’s speech is available here.
² Further information on the bill is available on the Parliament website.
³ Article available here.
⁴ The statement is available here.